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North of Market Street 



Being the Adventures 

of 

A New York Woman 

in 

Philadelphia 



■' 0'' l^OV/Jv 

\ SyiAR 23189P 



PHILADELPHIA : 

AviL Printing Co. 

MARKET AND FORTIETH STREETS 



1896 



\G 



Copyright, 1896, by Avil Printing Company. 



B1 



North of Market Street. 



Chapter I. 

THE reason we went to Philadelphia was 
because Helen wished to matriculate at 
the Woman's Medical College. She had 
her own reasons for preferring to be made a 
Doctor there, and I was thankful she did not 
go farther afield ; for there is one good thing 
about Philadelphia, it is only two hours from 
New York, at the worst. 

We are sisters. We are twins. We are old 
young women, — that is, we were, fori am writing 
of several years ago. We had been graduated 



4 NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 

from a nice New York school. We had jaunted, 
more or less, through Europe and our own 
country. We had lived the lives of high-caste 
Bohemians. We have no near relations, except 
Aunt Ellen, and she is semi-detached, being the 
widow of an uncle. We could do as we pleased. 

So Helen sloughed her skin of high-caste 
Bohemianism in a single night, and revealed 
the Altruist. Of course, like the seventeen-year 
locust, she had been getting ready for this a 
good while. I had seen the uneasy symptoms 
of detachment and was not surprised. Aunt 
Ellen was. 

It is perhaps unnecessary to state that we are 
not tally-ho people. Mrs. Van Rensselaer is an 
old-fangled Knickerbocker, who was taken to 
her home on Stuyvesant Square over half a 



NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 5 

century ago, as a bride, and has lived there 
ever since. On her drives, in her ramshackle 
coach, behind her obese and imbecile horses, 
she surveys the palaces in the new New York 
districts without wonder, or env}^, or admiration, 
and returns to her roomy, shabby, comfortable, 
old mansion, which smells of heirlooms and 
lavender ; sure that there never was such a 
house, or neighborhood, or trees, or grass, or 
sky, or birds, or minster of St. George. 

Her husband was an abolitionist and an advo- 
cate of temperance when to be either was un- 
popular and to be both was sensational. 

Her servants are ex-slaves and their children, 
George Washington Smith, Mrs. George Wash- 
ington Smith, and" their daughters, Jubie and 
Tribbie. My uncle bought the whole lot at a 



6 NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 

slave sale, in New Orleans, before the war. 
He allowed the elders to choose their own 
names, by request, a sort of baptism into free- 
dom. But he named the girls himself. Tribu- 
lation was always laughing, and Jubilation 
was always crying. I cannot see that they 
have grown any older since I was a child, only 
drier. 

Helen and I have scarcely known any other 
home than the old house on Stuyvesant Square, 
where we had been taken as little children, 
after our father had died in battle and our 
mother of not being able to live without him. 

As early as it was legall}^ possible Uncle 
James put us in possession of our little com- 
petence, explained its investment, taught us to 
draw checks and to tremble at a high rate of 



NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 7 

interest, and encouraged us to think for our- 
selves and act for ourselves. Soon afterwards 
he died. 

Aunt Ellen was our friend, our adviser, our 
confidante. She indulged us in ever}- reason- 
able whim. She gave us luncheons, and dances, 
and theatre parties ; put in our way the 
gilded youth of the city, and when the gilding 
rubbed off gravely sympathized. 

After Uncle James's death, she journeyed with 
us through Europe, and a little of Asia and 
Africa, and a good deal of America ; and would 
have gone to New Zealand if we had so desired. 
But we didn't. 

On her seventieth birthday she said, " Now, 
girls, that you are old enough to fend for your- 
selves, I mean to sta}- at home. I shall go to 



8 NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 

Lake Mohonk one summer, and to Lake Minne- 
waska the next, and that is all the change I 
crave until I see your Uncle James again ; 
and then if he wants me to travel with him to 
Jupiter or Aldebaran, I shall be ready to go." 

Soon after this, when Helen announced one 
morning, over our rolls and coffee, that she had 
decided to be a physician, and work among the 
poor. of the Stanton Street district, connected 
with St. George's parish, Aunt Ellen threw up 
her hands with a fervent ^''Ntuic dimtiizsy We 
have since found that this, or something like 
it, had been her ambition for us from the first. 

If Aunt Ellen was disappointed because Helen 
did not wish to pursue her studies in New 
York, she did not say so. She agreed that it 
was best to go to Philadelphia at once, — it was 



NORTH OF MARK;ET STREET. 9 

now May, — look over the ground, find a good 
boarding place (three wry faces), and make all 
arrangements for flitting in the fall. We asked 
her whether she would accompany us, and she 
said no ; she would come on after we were 
settled, in order to make pictures in her mind 
of what we were doing ; and she would ask 
Miss Polhemus to stay with her while we were 
gone. Miss Polhemus was an old school friend 
of Mrs, Van Rensselaer's, who boarded next door 
for the sake of being near her. 

In two nights and a day we were back. 
Philadelphia had been hot. We had gone to 
the Hotel Lafayette, on a wide street, with a 
brutal mass of marble dumped in the centre 
of it called the Public Buildings, which 
destroys the symmetry of everything about, 



lO NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 

including the long vista of the beautiful 
street. 

We had taken a four-wheeler to the Woman's 
College, had seen the Dean, who answered our 
questions satisfactorily, and had found a board- 
ing place with good points. It was a mile 
from the college, and would give Helen a con- 
stitutional on fine days, and an easy car route 
on wet ones ; and it was ten minutes' walk 
from the Park, where I could get my daily 
sprint. 

As soon as all these details were confided to 
Aunt Ellen she gave a whist party. The 
guests consisted of Miss Polhemus, who had 
not gone back to her boarding house next 
door; and of old friends of Uncle James and 
Aunt Ellen, who likewise had been friends of 



NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 11 

our father and mother. These whist parties 
were grave occasions. They were alwa3''S given 
just before the "Twins" had decided to do 
something different. On this night there was 
the usual solemn rubber, the dignified survey 
of the battlefield, by victors and defeated, after 
the bloodless fray ; and then a little salad and 
strawberry and apollinaris supper, served in 
the big, cool dining-room. While the ices were 
being eaten there was a pause. The guests 
knew, from previous experience, that the 
" Twins " had their trunks packed. 

" My niece, Helen, has decided to stud}^ medi- 
cine," said Aunt Ellen, sweetly. 

In the scene that ensued we did not take a 
hand. On such occasions, Mrs. Van Rensselaer 
is an army with banners. After one of her 



12 NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 

cavalry charges there are no wounded, but only 
the dead and the fled. 

It was first thought that we had lost our little 
fortune. But commiseration yielded to indigna- 
tion as soon as it was known that this decision 
was only another of Helen's whims. It was said 
that for a young woman to study medicine, in 
that state of life in which it had pleased God to 
place us, was undignified. This was the undi- 
vided opinion of the men. The women thought 
it improper ; and one dear old lady whispered, 
under her breath, "immodest." 

Aunt Ellen gently refused to discuss the point. 
" We are too old to fight over prejudices," she 
said ; " we haven't the time left to outgrow them; 
and Helen is old enough to know what she wants, 
and independent enough to do as she pleases. 



NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 1 3 

Then it was said, that, since auntie had devoted 
herself to us for the last twenty-five years, the 
least we could do, in common gratitude, was to 
devote ourselves to her for the next twenty-five. 
The "Twins" were warmly defended by Aunt 
Bllen. Then, if Helen must do such an incom- 
prehensible, eccentric, unheard-of thing, why 
couldn't she study in New York, instead of 
roughing it, with her sister, in a strange city, 
in a boarding house ? Helen quietly gave 
her reasons, which were, as usual, lucid and 
convincing. And then, all being very thirsty, 
we drank a friendly glass of apollinaris, 
and the talk flowed, quietly, around Philadel- 
phia. 

Aunt Bllen liked Philadelphia. She had jiever 
been there, but had always admired the stand 



14 NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 

the Friends took concerning slavery and the 
temperance question. And the women were so 
beautifully, spotlessly clean, as the}^ sat on the 
piazzas of the hotels, at various watering places. 
She had a niece who lived in Stainborough, one 
of the suburbs, she believed. She regretted not 
having seen much of her of late years. She 
would greatly enjoy visiting her, when she went 
to see the " Twins." 

Mr. Maverick said there was only one way 
of getting into Philadelphia, and that was 
with your family tree in one hand, and a let- 
ter of introduction to one of the Patronesses 
of the Assembly in the other. Otherwise 
you were liable to be treated like a mu- 
latto, particularly if you got into the wrong 
locality. 



NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 1 5 

" By the way, where is your locality ? Is it 
North or vSouth of Market Street ? " he asked, 
anxiously. 

"I don't know," answered Helen. "It is on 
Grafton Street, about a mile from Girard 
College." 

" Oh, dear, dear ! " said he, in distressed tones, 
"that is all wrong. It should be two miles or 
two miles and a fraction, at least, if my memory 
serves. An inch, more or less, makes all the 
difference in the world, in your social position, 
in Philadelphia." 

" We are not going there for social position," 
said Helen, laughing, "at least I am not; and I 
fancy Jane can find her level wherever she is." 

" My daughter-in-law thinks Philadelphia is 
the most immoral city in the United States," 



1 6 NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 

said one old gentleman, who had not spoken 
before. " Oh ! I don't mean in the sense in 
which you are taking it. I fancy they keep the 
Ten Commandments, there, a good deal more 
literally than we do in New York. But they 
have expunged the last half of the eleventh one 
from their creed, and from their experience. 
My son and his wife used to live in a quiet town 
in the Berkshire Hills, where he is partner in a 
paper mill. He found he could make a good deal 
more money by taking charge of the business in 
Philadelphia. He took his family there and 
settled in a fine house on North Broad Street, — 
beautiful street, but off color, it seems. The 
daughters went to Miss Dudley's school, and, by 
George ! not a girl spoke to them ; sent them to 
Coventry as completely as if their father were 



NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 17 

serving out a life sentence in State prison, for 
murder. 

" Bessie stood it for two years, and then she 
coaxed her husband to go back to Berkshire and 
let one of the other partners take his place, one 
who had no children. And she told him and his 
wife they would have a better chance of happi- 
ness in Camden, on the other side of the river ; 
and, as he is a great yachtsman, they took her 
advice. The yacht is moored at the foot of their 
street, and they are quite satisfied, I am told. 
Bessie says she could not bring up her girls 
where prejudice and suspicion are in the very air 
they breathe. She says the down-town people 
despise the up-town people because they don't live 
down town ; and the up-tow n people despise each 
other because the down-town people despise them." 



l8 NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 

" Well, there is something queer about it," 
said Mr. Maverick. "It takes the most Am- 
erican city in America to be the most un- 
American." 

" I fancy," said Aunt Bllen, " it is something 
like a New Yorker's prejudice against Brookl}^ 
and Harlem. I suppose there are people who 
think Stuyvesant Square is off color ; but we old 
New Yorkers don't agree with them." 

"No," said the old gentleman, "Bessie is a 
New Yorker herself, and she says there is noth- 
ing here like the arbitrary, geographical distinc- 
tions existing in Philadelphia." 

" Well, I have always heard," said Aunt Bllen, 
" that the Philadelphians are clannish, and hard 
to become acquainted with, but when you know 
them, they are lovely." 



NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 19 

Conversation died after this, and the whist 
party broke up, at midnight; amicably, on 
the part of Mrs. Van Rensselaer and the 
"Twins;" with indulgence on the part of their 
guests. 



20 NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 



Chapter II. 

WE spent tHe summer at Lake Mohonk, 
and went to Philadelphia in the begin- 
ning of the last week in September, so 
as to look about us, and be ready for the open- 
ing of the college year, October first. Aunt 
Ellen accompanied us ; and as the house was 
not yet full she was able to be with us during 
the week, and help us wear away the first 
strangeness. 

Number Blank-Hundred Grafton Street was a 
corner house, not large, but airy and sunny, with 
a brown mastic front, and brown stone steps;, 
unlike, as we thankfully found, in look and 



NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 21 

arrangement, the rectangular brick boxes that 
stretched, through dreary miles, in every direc- 
tion. Our sleeping room was on the third floor 
of the extension, with a private bath ; and our 
sitting room was a noble apartment on the sec- 
ond floor, with two windows in front and two on 
the side, and ample closet room. The house 
was spotlessly clean and furnished in simple 
good taste, the prevailing tints being soft grey. 

At dinner, on the night of our arrival, Aunt 
Ellen asked for a glass of w^ater, saying she 
preferred it to lemonade. 

" Oh, that isn't lemonade," said our Quaker 
hostess. " We have just had the equinoctial, 
and the water always looks so, after a long rain. 
We Philadelphians are so used to the color that 
we don't mind it, but I notice strangers always 



22 NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 

remark upon it. It has been analyzed over and 
over again by our physicians, and they say it is 
the purest drinking water in the United States ; 
always excepting, of course, spring water and 
the artesian wells." 

Auntie did not dispute the statement, but after 
dinner we sought the nearest drug store, where 
she ordered several bottles of aquatone. That 
night we bathed in a decoction of weak coffee, 
and the next day Mrs. Van Rensselaer, with a 
thoroughness that distinguishes her most minute 
decisions, fitted us out with an approved filter 
for the bathroom faucets ; and, for our sitting 
room, a boiling apparatus, and a neat little article 
of furniture half filter, half ice-chest. 

After settling our belongings and renting a 
piano, we went with auntie to the various places 



NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 23 

of interest in Philadelphia. These consist of 
the Mint, Girard College, Independence Hall, the 
Academy of the Fine Arts, and certain localities 
celebrated in Revolutionary anecdotes ; and the 
Park, the big, breezy, shady, joyous, boundless 
Park. 

At the Mint, Aunt Ellen was interested in 
nothing so much as the Widow's Mite. In In- 
dependence Hall she looked long at the Liberty 
Bell. At Girard College she gazed lovingly at 
the hosts of boys, of all ages and sizes, so well 
dressed, so well housed, so well fed, so well 
taught, so heart-bitten for that poor, small cor- 
ner they once called "Home." "There should 
be more women here," was her sole remark, 
"boys need mothering." We went through the 
Academy of the Fine Arts at a rapid walk. I have 



24 NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 

since seen some fine exhibitions there, but on 
that day there was little to admire. We went 
to the Revolutionary localities and looked pen- 
sive, and then laughed. 

The Revolutionary localities are now centres 
of trade, and it is difficult to feel past-patriotic 
in the presence of the modern dray and the 
ancient dray-horse. Then we went to Blank's 
for an ice. As we were getting into the car- 
riage again, we saw two fine-looking young fel- 
lows sprinting down Chestnut Street. " Give 
you my word," said one to the other, " I never 
was so glad to get back to a place in my life. 
That huge, shouting babel of New York is 
enough to stun a deaf elephant." Then we went 
to the Park, and gave ourselves up to a breezy 
delight ; delight in noble trees, in soft, green 



NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 25 

Spaces, in a gently flowing river, and in wild- 
nesses, seemingly so untouched and remote, that 
we almost expected to hear the war-whoop of 
the primitive Indian. 

When we returned to the house, we found 
Nellie there, Aunt Ellen's niece. I had not 
seen her since her wedding, ten or eleven years 
back. She was married to one of the Talbot- 
Shrewsburys. We were told, at the time, that 
the family ranked high in Philadelphia; next 
in fact to the Norfolk-HoM^ards. Her husband 
had woolen mills in Stainborough, and they 
were obliged to live there for business reasons ; 
a fact which Nellie had always deplored in her 
letters to Aunt Ellen. 

She greeted us cordially, and then burst out 
with, — " Oh, my, my, my, what a mistake you 



26 NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 

have made ! Why didn't you consult me about 
coming here ?" 

" What mistake, and what was there to con- 
sult you about?" said Aunt Ellen, with dignity. 

" Oh, don't you know," said Nellie, " what 
a-a-an undesirable locality this is, North of 
Market Street ? None of the nice, down-town 
people will ever call on the girls. A side street 
now, Eighteenth, or Nineteenth opposite Logan 
Square, would be bad enough, but Grafton 
Street ! could anything be worse ? Don't you 
think 3; on could make a change before anyone 
finds it out ? There are lovely boarding houses 
on Chestnut Street and Walnut Street, or they 
would be much better off in Germantown." 

" Why, what sort of a place is Philadelphia ?" 
said Aunt Ellen. " We are not in the habit 



NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 2/ 

of consulting people about localities. This 
seems to me a very nice street, as streets go, 
for they are nearly all narrow, here. We are 
on high ground, with better air than they have 
on either Chestnut or Walnut Street, which are 
both too far awa}^ from the college ; and Ger- 
mantown is not to be thought of Besides, I 
have always found that ' where MacGregor sits 
is the head of the table.' " 

"Not in Philadelphia, auntie," said Nellie, 
with great resolution. " It is different from any 
place you ever heard of, in this countr}- ; and 
strangers coming here have to recognize that 
fact or go under." 

"Under what?" said Mrs. Van Rensselaer. 
And then she dismissed the whole subject with 
a wave of her hands. When Aunt Ellen waves 



28 NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 

her hands, it is, in her own circle, equal to one 
of Jupiter's nods ; and Nellie never ventured to 
bring the matter up again, in her presence. 
Helen and I heard of it, at short intervals, to 
the bitter end. 

The next day we went to Mrs. Talbot-Shrews- 
bury's spacious and lovely home in Stain- 
borough, and saw her husband and her two 
droll little boys. Lionel Talbot-Shrewsbury 
was a fair, corpulent man of about forty, with 
a kind, common face, and hair that grew on the 
top of his head in little tufts, like bulrushes 
on the banks of a sluggish stream. He seemed 
to have no intellect, sufficient intelligence, and 
a disposition of great sweetness. Nellie is fond 
of music, and as Helen had studied the piano 
in Berlin, with Kullak, and I had studied the 



NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 29 

voice in Paris, with Marchesi, she was anxious 
to hear us. Helen played, and I sang ; and 
when we had finished Lionel said, gently : 
" Well, cousins, I suppose that is very fine, but 
I never could understand anything in Q flat. 
Isn't there something simple you could give 
me?" 

Helen executed the " Monastery Bells," with 
great finish and delicacy, and I sang '' Bonny 
Sweet Bessie the Maid of Dundee." The good 
fellow thanked us for our performance, and said, 
simply, — " 1 always like to hear the ' Monastery 
Bells.' It reminds me of when I was a little 
fellow and my mother played it for me. She 
was one of the Renfrews of Germantown, a 
sweet woman. She died when I was onl}' ten 
years old." 



30 NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 

• 

We sta^^ed two or three days, entertained 
delightfully. Mrs. Talbot-Shrewsbury was a 
fascinating hostess, her husband a ray of pure 
sunshine, and the children as droll as children 
can be and live. We ate and drank all day 
long, to our own condemnation, and far into the 
night ; took romantic drives behind Lionel's 
spirited horses ; and returned to Philadelphia in 
time to be present at the opening of the college. 

That afternoon Aunt Ellen went back to 
New York, Helen began her studies, and I 
felt as though the bottom had dropped out of 
the universe. 



NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 31 



Chapter III. 

MATTERS settled themselves, for Helen, 
in the groove they were to keep for some 
years. Her desk was in one corner of 
the sitting room, having on it wTiting materials 
and a Rochester lamp, with, at her right, a revolv- 
ing bookcase, full of bulky volumes. At night 
she sat there and studied behind a screen. Once 
I tiptoed across the floor and looked over it. 
Helen, with a green shade over her e3'es, and a 
big book open before her, was carefulh' ex- 
amining what looked like a shin bone of beef. 
On the desk was a skull, and some osseosities 
for which I had no name. I tiptoed back to 



32 NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 

my seat, and after that the Bluebeard comer 
of the room knew me no more. 

In Philadelphia art was mediocre, and music 
not to be had, except when Thomas gave his 
infrequent concerts. Humanity was, at present, 
not interesting. " Philadelphians are clannish, 
and hard to become acquainted with," I quoted 
from Aunt Ellen, " but when you know them 
they are lovely." I shall wait. 

Meanwhile, some outside influence was abso- 
lutely imperative, unless I intended to become 
morbid ; and morbidness, in the Van Rensselaer 
household, is the eighth deadly sin, — to be 
punished with a circle lower than Dante's low- 
est. Lucifer did have Judas, and Brutus, and 
Cassius for company, — excellent company, too, 
the Romans must have been, — and probably 



NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 33 

there was some interesting conversation, between 
crunches, which made life not too dull for the 
lonely Judas ; but a morbid person's hell is to 
feed on himself. Therefore, no morbidness ! 

The Rector of "All Souls," who had called 
upon us, suggested my helping the garment 
committee, at the parish house, once a week. 
So I presented myself, one day, as an appli- 
cant for work, and gave my name and address 
and reference — the Rector himself. I found 
about a dozen nice looking women, of all ages, 
engaged in cutting out and basting undergar- 
ments for the masses, of shapes which had, long 
since, been discarded by the classes. These 
were subsequently made up by women who were 
paid for their work, and were sold for the bene- 
fit of the poor of the parish. 



34 NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 

I was received with polite forbearance by an 
elderly woman, evidently tbe chairman of the 
committee, who assigned me a place at the cut- 
ting table. No one said anything to me, but 
the women quietly chatted among themselves, 
about Johnnie, and Susie, and Tommie ; Tom- 
mie, and Susie, and Johnnie ; the choir, the 
altar committee, the Rector, and the Rector's 
wife. When the hour was over, the chairman 
dismissed me with a displeased nod. I went, 
once a week, all that winter, with precisely the 
same experience. I do not know wh}'- the wo- 
men of the garment committee did not speak to 
me, nor what I had done to displease the chair- 
man. It reminded me of when I was a school 
girl, and one of my teachers used to say to me, 
in austere tones, after one of my girlish pranks : 



NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 35 

"Jane Van Rensselaer, I am not pleased with 
your manner." I looked over my manner, daily, 
pruned it, here and there, and polished it occa- 
sionally, but without success. I felt discouraged. 

I walked every day, even pretty bad days, 
in the big comforting Park. I practiced and 
read diligently. I wrote long letters to Aunt 
Ellen and to old friends, and I tried to interest 
myself in the people of the house; one or two 
had possibilities. 

The dreary streets affected me like a night- 
mare, and I used to go, frequently, to a syna- 
gogue in the neighborhood, and look long at 
the arabesques and the beautiful Moorish arches, 
and think of camels, and wish I w^as back again 
in the Syrian Desert, where we had been this 
time the vear before. 



36 NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 

Meanwhile some of the peculiarities of the 
city began to dawn upon me, gradually : — 

The patient matter-of-course manner with 
which people sat, quarter or half hours, in the 
street cars, while coal was being dumped. After 
losing several trains, I learned to make allow- 
ance for possible or probable detentions, as others 
seemed to do. 

The low voices in which shoppers gave their 
addresses when they lived above Market Street, 
and the joyous tones with which they frankly 
owned a not-too-far-down- town residence. 

The way in which people knocked into you on 
Chestnut Street, and when you, willing to put 
yourself in the wrong, for humanity's sake, said, 
"I beg pardon," the look with which they glared 
at you, as if you had been personally insulting. 



NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 37 

And when you politely held open the doors 
of shops, the way in which you were allowed 
to do it, without thanks or assistance, as if 
it were your avocation, and amply paid for at 
a dollar a day. 

And the way late people crowded past you 
at concert, or opera, or theatre, without excuse 
or comment, as if you were a chair, and in the 
road at that. 

Once, an annoyed looking elderly woman, who 
sat opposite me in a Walnut Street car, said to her 
companion: "Did you hear that Whiteley's son 
is to marry Fitz James's daughter ? " A contemp- 
tuous sniff. " Don't you know the Fitz James' 
were in trade, way back ? Blood will tell." 

Once Helen and I were walking on Chestnut 
Street ; said one pretty girl to another, "I should, 



38 NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 

literally, rather die than live North of Market 
Street." These things we pondered in our 
hearts. 

Meanwhile Helen was absorbed and happy, 
and when things became too dreary for me I fled 
to New York, to auntie and Miss Polhemus, and 
the " goodies " — our childish names for the 
servants — and the strong, salt air, and music, 
and old friends, and the alert, interested crowds, 
and the joyous life everywhere. Occasionally 
we went to Nellie's, and always with distinct 
satisfaction in her pleasant hospitality, her kind 
man, and her two sweet, droll, little boys. 
Christmas vacation and Easter vacation we spent 
in Stuyvesant Square, and the summer at Lake 
Minnewaska, with Aunt Ellen : and the first 
year wore away. 



NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 39 

Mrs. Van Rensselaer always carefully renders 
to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, Simply 
dressed, as a rule ; no one knows better than she 
what is becoming to the grande daine. At the 
Queen's Drawing-room — where we had been pre- 
sented, some years before — her gown, her 
jewels, her sunset beauty, her imperial dignity, 
attracted the attention of royalty itself, and were 
the adoration of the American colony in London. 
A patrician, — as position goes in this countr}^, — 
she does not believe in rank, in any of its con- 
ventional meanings. 

" We are very little people in this world," she 
will say, " so little that it would take a micro- 
scope to define our littleness. In America, our 
ancestors were all middle class : if thev were not, 
then they fell below it. In Europe, the founders 



40 NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 

of great families were nearly always merely 
stronger and more brutal than their fellow 
savages. Here the evolution goes on from 
frieze to broadcloth, from broadcloth to evening 
suit, from evening suit to poverty ; but not a 
shirt-sleeve poverty. Some of the nicest people 
I know have been rich, and are now in reduced 
circumstances. They have all the advantages of 
wealth, without its too often snobbish and 
arrogant assumption and selfishness." 

Helen and I are friendly people. As children 
we were taught that friendliness is the brevet of 
friendship, and that friendship is rare and 
exclusive, but possible. We have delightful 
acquaintances and correspondents all over the 
world, from Darjheeling to Madras ; from Singa- 
pore to Yokohama ; from Tiflis to St. Petersburg ; 



NORTH OF MARKE'T STREET. 41 

from Naples to the North Cape ; and all across 
the American continent, and some of the islands 
of the sea. We had learned when we were 
children to be friendly and helpful for the minute, 
for the hour, anywhere ; being in this world 
" guests of a day and travelers that pass." 

In thinking it over, it seems to me that Aunt 
Bllen grasps the proportions of things better than 
anyone I have ever known ; our littleness, our help- 
lessness, our glaring, electric light. Nineteenth 
Century ignorance ; the mystery of our coming 
and going, and our pathetic, mutual, human needs. 

Accustomed to large ways of looking at life, 
still further enlarged by extensive travel, the 
provincial inside-of-a-teacup view of things I had 
so far found in Philadelphia saddened and 
wearied me inexpressibly. 



42 NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 

Helen was happy in her work and in her 
companions, and many a Saturday night was 
enlivened by chafing-dish suppers, to which 
flocked her fellow students, bright interesting 
women ; some of them so young, some of them 
so old; from India, from Palestine, from China 
and Japan, from the Sandwich Islands and 
Australia ; and from every State of the Union ; 
and an Indian princess from the wildest and 
wooliest West. They chattered of lectures, and 
quizzes, and professors, and examinations, and 
laboratories, and darker mysteries, with an occa- 
sional polyglot flavor of incident and anecdote, 
that had an endless charm. 

Helen was happy, but for me the problem of 
life, for the next two or three years, had yet to 
be solved. 



NORTH OF MARKET STREET 43 



Chapter IV. 

THE boarders at Blank-Hundred Grafton 
Street were, with one or two exceptions, 
nice, ordinary people, with whom I held 
nice, ordinary intercourse. One of the excep- 
tions was a 3"oung woman whom I found in- 
stalled there, on my return, the second 3'ear. 
We soon became acquainted. Her name was 
a familiar one, being the same as that of a 
well known philanthropist in one of the Eastern 
States. I subsequently found that she was his 
niece. 

Miss Alden had traveled extensively in 
Europe, and had studied while there. On her 



44 NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 

return, after some preliminary coaching, she 
had entered Bryn Mawr, during its first year, 
somewhat later than girls enter college now, 
and had been graduated. 

She was a tall woman, dark, slender, and 
strong as a pine tree, and with something of its 
wholesome, tonic effect. Not in the least 
pretty, she had that much better quality, an 
interesting face, a fine, frank manner, observa- 
tion, discrimination, and decided common sense. 
She was as enthusiastic a pedestrian as I, and 
we took long walks in the Park every Satur- 
day morning. 

" I can't help wondering. Miss Van Rensse- 
laer," said she one day, " how you come to find 
yourself in Philadelphia, and what you are 
doing North of Market Street." 



NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 45 

"I might ask the same question of you," I 
answered, laughing. " I am here because my 
sister is here, and I have not yet been able 
to grasp the mystery of Market Street. Per- 
haps you can tell me." 

" I am here," said Miss Alden, "because, after 
my father and mother died, and my sisters and 
brothers married, Bryn Mawr seemed more like 
home than any place in the world, and I wanted 
to be near it. I can work, here, without too 
much wear and tear, for there are no distrac- 
tions. The vacations are long, and I flee utterly 
away and forget that Philadelphia exists. I live 
North of Market Street because I can save some 
dollars a week by it. I like to go across, just so 
often, to freshen up a bit, and this helps. And I 
can hoard my little patrimony for my old age. 



46 NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 

" But no outsider ever feels at home in Phila- 
delphia ; and, as near as I can find out, no 
Philadelphian ever feels at home anywhere else. 
There are decided objections to the butter, ices, 
and fanc}^ cakes of the outside world ; and who 
there knows how to cook terrapin ? 

" About this North of Market Street business 
— I saw a good deal of it in Bryn Mawr. The 
cleavage was as distinct as the brass line of the 
equator, on a globe. But as my friendships 
were with North of Market Street girls, I didn't 
give the subject much thought, except to notice 
that the ones on the other side of the line 
seemed stiff, and uninteresting, and arrogant. 
I didn't know why and cared less. There were 
little jokes fl3^ing about, tipped with sarcasm, 
that I didn't understand then, though I do now. 



NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 47 

" Harriet Martineau says, in her 'Travels,' that 
on Chestnut Street the grandfathers had made 
the money, and on Arch Street the fathers ; 
that about describes the whole business. Then, 
it seems that a dozen or so of vulgar people, 
who had made fortunes, as army contractors 
during the war, built some splendid mansions 
on a wide street, north, and that has banned a 
high, wholesome district of several miles square. 
Hundreds of nice, quiet people live there, in a 
nice, quiet, old-fashioned way, who have been 
steadily getting richer and richer every year ; 
whose grandchildren have had every advantage, 
are handsome, well bred, traveled, have enlarged 
ideas, and are well received everywhere ; every- 
where except South of Market Street, where they 
are socially ostracized. 



48 NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 

" This North and South of Market Street dis- 
tinction flavors everything in Philadelphia. A 
down-town mother says to her daughter : 
' Never associate with an up-town girl. She 
isn't nice or she wouldn't live up town.' An 
up-town mother says to her daughter : ' Never 
have anything to do with a down-town girl, she 
will only treat you unkindly.' This sort of 
thing has been going on for generations, and 
is the cause of the shut-out and shut-in look 
you see on so many of the women's faces on 
Chestnut Street. I can tell an outsider at a 
glance. A face hospitable to impressions is 
not a native to the soil. 

" Most of the people from the North, South, 
East and West; who come to Philadelphia, go 
North of Market Street, by natural selection. 



NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 49 

It is higher, pleasanter, the air is better, there 
are two or three wide streets. Even when they 
know of the local differences, they do not think 
them of sufficient importance to weigh against 
obvious advantages. And then, when they find 
themselves dropped by old friends whom they 
have had south of the line ; their children sent 
to Coventry, in the down-town schools ; and 
realize the whole social-malaria condition, gen- 
erally ; they do one of several things : They 
either go back where they came from ; quietly 
acknowledge their mistake and move within the 
sacred precincts ; go to one of the little outside 
towns and are known as the county families ; 
or stubbornly stay where they are, acquire the 
shut-in manner, place their children awa}- at 
school, try to get their boys into business, 



50 NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 

elsewhere, send their girls on long visits to their 
relations, and pray for foreign entanglements. 

"Some nice people from the South moved here 
a year or two ago. They bought one of those 
lovely houses on Spring Garden Street. They 
have one child, a little girl of about eight, who 
was sent to Miss Dudley's school. Last spring 
the family went to the Somerset Arms, in the 
suburbs ; a great resort for those who do not 
care to go far afield till July or August. 

" The society women decided to get up a dance 
for the little folks. As it happened, they all 
lived south of the line except Betty Lee. 
Some of the tender-hearted women were puzzled 
what to do, and advocated including her. But 
the acknowledged leader said ' No, we have our 
rules, and we cannot break them even for nice 



NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 5 1 

people who have been so foolish or so ignorant 
as to settle above Market Street. We must 
be consistent!' The day after the dance the 
Lees left the hotel, and the next week they 
broke up their home and removed to Baltimore. 
And this is America, and the Philadelphians 
pride themselves on being the most American 
city in the Union. I call it medieval English. 
" I'll tell A'ou another little incident that came 
under mj^ notice. I have a cousin who lives 
in the Blue Belt. She gave a dance, not long 
ago, and I was invited to look on, while the 
butterflies disported. There was a prett}^, pretty 
girl sta3dng at the house, from New York, and 
I was amazed to find that she was receivine 
no attention whatever. ]\Iy cousin called one 
of the bo3^s aside, and said to him, ' Tom, you 



52 NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 

must give the next dance to Miss Maverick.' 
'Awfully sorry, Mrs. Winthrop, but I've prom- 
ised it to Martie ; why I've known her ever 
since she was so high,' and he pranced off. 
Now what do you think of that ? 

*' The trouble with Philadelphians is, they 
huddle too much, whether on the piazzas of 
the hotels of their own chosen watering places, 
or in their own drawing-rooms. They dislike 
new ideas, new places, new people. They like 
what has been, the usual, the mediocre. One 
of the Norfolk-Howards has well said, of her 
own set, that ' they feel a cold and sullen 
resentment toward anyone who rises head and 
shoulders above them.' " 

" But," I said, " I have always heard that Phila- 
delphians were so hospitable to strangers. It 



NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 53 

has almost passed into a proverb." Miss Alden 
laughed amusedly. 

"Yes, I know, but I've not seen anything of 
it. When there is hospitality it is a clan obli- 
gation. Connections or their friends come with 
a regular letter of credit, which is duly and gen- 
erously acknowledged to the last farthing. But 
that sweet and spontaneous welcome to friend 
and to stranger at unexpected times, which we 
know and love in the East, is absolutel}^ un- 
known here. Clan obligations to their own ? 3^es ! 
But is that hospitality ? Here the angels are 
dul}^ stamped and labelled and heralded. Thej'- 
never come unawares. 

" I don't know how teachers fare in New York, 
but in Boston they were the idols of our child- 
hood and girlhood, and if we could get them 



54 NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 

to come to us for a drive, or a dance, oi 
a dinner, or an outing, we were way up with 
delight. Here many of the girls won't speak 
to me on the street. None of the older ones 
do. I am their social inferior. It wouldn't be 
good form. 

"Of course there is the 'smart set' in. every 
city, the 'Four Hundred' in New York, for 
instance, who live in a semi-ducal world, and 
look upon all other Americans as barbarians, 
having only just emerged from the wilds them- 
selves. Nobody cares for them or takes them 
into consideration, But what is called the 
' nice set ' elsewhere has no counterpart here. 
The standards are so widely different. Nice 
people, in Philadelphia, are those whose grand- 
fathers were born south of Market Street. 



NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 55 

They may live in little shabby houses, be ut- 
terly without distinction, narrow, unintellectual, 
uninteresting, unprogressive, but they are re- 
ceived everywhere, in the smart set and out of 
it, their claims allowed, their position im- 
pregnable. ' We are the people, and wisdom 
has died with us, but we know just where we 
are, and where our fathers and our grandfathers 
and our great grandfathers were,' and so back 
to the dull, stolid London merchants, from whom 
most of them are descended. And v/hat makes 
me 'foam at the mouth' is, that if 3'ou are at 
all friendly or cordial the true Philadelphian 
immediately thinks that j^ou are after some- 
thing; that you want hospitality, or patronage, 
or to be taken up. Thc}^ can't conceive that 
the jumping-off-place of your desires is a little 



56 ^ORTH OF MARKET STREET. 

common civility ; the ' ship ahoy ' of the friend- 
ly mariner." 

" But don't the up-town people ever move 
south of Market Street ? " I asked. 

" Scores of them," was the answer, " and 
with this effect : So far as they, personally, are 
concerned, they might as well have stayed 
where they were. But there is a saving grace 
in repentance. They are held to have re- 
pented of their sins and to have shown a de- 
sire for amendment, always a heavenly thing to 
witness. Their children gain by it. Thej'' 
may be as Knights, and their grandchildren as 
King James's Baronets, in this curious Phila- 
delphia nobility, of South of Market Street cre- 
ation. You Knickerbockers are pinchbeck by 
comparison. 



NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 57 

*' Do you know, that the limits of the well- 
bred district are distinctly outlined ? About a 
mile and a quarter long and a half mile wide ; 
and without are ravening beasts, and within it 
is called 'Paradise.' " 

"But how about West Philadelphia?" I 
asked. " That seems to me a beautiful part of 
the city, so open and breezy, and with such 
pretty houses and fine shade trees." 

" Oh, West Philadelphia is divided also; North 
is, of course, a part of the Great Taboo. South 
it is blue if you have piles of money ; if not it 
is not black and not blue, but a beautiful bluish 
grey. 

" One of the teachers at the school came 
the other day looking terribly distressed. She 
is a well-bred young woman, with strong 



58 NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 

common sense, and when I asked her what the 
trouble was : It seemed that during the ab- 
sence of the daughters in Kurope that summer, 
the mother, smelling malaria in their residence, 
had unfeelingly moved from 136 South to 136 
North on the same street, in West Philadel- 
phia, 

" ' I assure you,' said Miss Douglas, laying 
her hand on her heart, ' I thought it would 
kill me to see " North " on my visiting cards. 
Such a thing has never been known in our 
family.' 

" And once Miss Dudley asked me to see a 
stranger for her. She proved to be a teacher 
of the banjo, but I mistook her for some one 
else, and said, ' Oh, you are the one who 
called here the other day from Mount Vernon 



NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 59 

Street, to see about ' ' I never,' said the 

young woman, in accents that trembled with 
indignation, ' I never lived above Market Street 
in my life.' I soothed her as best I could, I 
deplored my fatal mistake, I even offered to 
take lessons on the banjo, but all in vain, I 
have made an enemy for life. 

" Oh, yes, you can laugh. It's very ridiculous, 
I know, but it's very heart-numbing, too. Per- 
sonality counts for less, here, than anywhere else 
in the United States. Position is a geographical 
distinction, and multitudes are blessed or banned 
in districts. 

" It is assumed that all the dwellers in the 
Great Taboo are raw, vulgar, ignorant, undesir- 
able. There is that element everywhere. South 
of Market Street, just as well as North ; of 



6o NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 

course there are crowds of uncultivated people in 
that huge district, up town ; and with them, 
crowds of as lovely families as you ever knew ; 
and scores, too, of Eastern people, who are the 
Brahmins of their own home, and here are 
anathema. It is funny to see their disgusted 
bewilderment when they realize the state of 
things around them. 

" The boast of the city is that money carries no 
weight with it, whatever ; other considerations 
prevailing. In the first place, this is untrue. 
An enormous amount of money will go just as 
far, here, as it will anywhere else, unless the 
owners are positively barbarous. Besides, money 
in the second and third generations brings refine- 
ment and enlargement. It is bound to. What 
does a locality standard give ? Increased 



NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 6 1 

narrowness. Philadelphia is a big place, and 
thousands of quiet, unambitious people live North 
of Market Street, and are dense to conditions ; 
and find all the distraction and society they care 
for in their churches. And thousands resent, 
bitterly, the false position in which they are 
placed. 

" It is curious, too, to watch the beginnings of 
the social malaria that infects the whole city. 
Last year two sweet, little girls came to Miss 
Dudley's, who showed unmistakeable marks of 
culture and refinement. But they were frozen 
out of the society of the rest of the school as 
completely as though they had been the children 
of a coachman. The little things looked so hurt 
and astonished, and clung to each other so piti- 
fully, at recess, that I ached for them. 



62 NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 

" I said to one little miss : ' What is the matter 
with the Lake-Shore children, that none of you 
speak to them ? Do they live on a wrong street ? ' 

" ' Oh, the street is good enough,' she answered, 
pertly, ' but we don't know who they are ; and 
our mammas don't like us to associate with girls, 
unless we know who they are.' 

" On inquir3r, I learned that the Lake-Shores 
were a New York State family, who had settled 
in Philadelphia, and, feeling quite sure that I 
should, at least, not be snubbed, I called. I 
found that they were wealthy people, who be- 
longed to the nice set of Buffalo. Mrs. Lake- 
Shore was refreshingly cordial, and we laughed, 
heartily, over some of the peculiarities indigenous 
here. She said she felt sorry for the children, 
but they had come to Philadelphia to stay, and 



NORTH OF MARKET STREET. . 63 

they must accustom themselves to conditions and 
live them down. She said that she and her 
husband had been received cordially enough and 
she thought she should be very happy here. On 
pressing the matter farther, she acknowledged 
on second thoughts, that their friends were not 
Philadelphians, but people from other places who 
had lived here for many years. 

" Not long after the Lake-Shores took me for a 
drive. We went out Broad Street, and Mrs. 
Lake-Shore remarked upon its beaut3^ ' Yes,' 
said her husband, ' this is a beautiful part of the 
city, but you know no one lives here.' You see 
how the poison works. Already, these strangers 
assumed what all South of Market Street 
assumes ; when I happened to know that the 
northern part of the city is dotted with homes 



64 NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 

of Eastern people who have just as good a claim 
to family and position as anyone in the 
United States ; and with Philadelphians of cul- 
ture and delicacy, who would be gladly welcomed 
among the ranks of nice people, anywhere 
else." 

" I should think," I said, " that the North of 
Market Street people would combine against 
such manifest ignorance and insolence." 

" They do. They combine in churches. 
Every church is a centre of society life, amuse- 
ment, and intelligence. They have their 
weddings, their fairs, their concerts, and lectures, 
and sociables. And dances are given by the 
boys and girls and the eligible young men and 
women of the congregation, just as it is in a 
village. But can't you see that it makes of 



NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 65 

Philadelphia not a city, but a string of villages, 
with village gossip and village narrowness ? " 

" But do you mean to say that' there is 
no common ground where the people can 
meet and be human ? Where is the University 
set?" 

" There is no University set, such as we know 
it in Boston, such as you know it in New York. 
There is no common literary and social centre, 
like the President's house at Harvard or Colum- 
bia. There is no President. 

"There are, however, a society and some clubs 
here, where bright members of the opposing 
factions meet and admire each other, and discuss 
literature and the topics of the da}- on as broad 
a basis as they do anywhere else. These are 
the Browning Society, the New Century Club, 



66 NORTH OF MARKET STREET- 

the Contemporary Club, and others. Between 
them, they give me lots of amusement, and un- 
limited material for my favorite study, that of 
human nature, under absolutely unique condi- 
tions. You will be here such a short time 
that it would be hardly worth while for ^'■ou to 
join the Century, and I can get you a card for 
the Contemporary, from my cousin, whenever 
you would like to go ; but I do think you would 
enjoy the Browning Society. The meetings are 
like lottery tickets, sometimes you draw a blank, 
and sometimes 3'ou get an uncommonly good 
thing. Do let me propose you." 

I told Miss Alden I would think of it. When 
I got home, I tried to get Helen interested in 
the various types of Philadelphia peculiarities 
that I had heard of that day. But she was 



NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 6/ 

studjang rhizopods, and could not liglitl}^ turn 
to anything so recent. So I waited till I could 
see Aunt Ellen. Dear sympatica Aunt Ellen, 
wlio would be interested in shoestrings, if shoe- 
strings interested me. 



68 NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 



Chapter V. 

WB were talking at tlie table, one day, 
about the local distinctions, and Mrs. 
Atlee said they were not recognized 
by the Frieiids. This seemed to me quite in. 
keeping with what I had seen and heard of their 
quiet, good sense in other things. " Many of 
the descendants of the original Friends have 
adopted thy faith," she said to me, smilingly. 
"But we do not consider ourselves responsible for 
their degeneration in that, or in anything else." 
Miss Coutts said : "I am from Pittsburg, but 
I am so unfortunate as to possess a Philadel- 
phia, Revolutionary historical name. One day, 



NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 69 

at a hotel in Atlantic City, I was startled by 
hearing some one in the next room groaning, as 
if in great pain. I knocked at the door and asked 
if I could be of any assistance, and a faint 
voice said, 'Come in.' I entered, and found 
an old lady lying in bed, evidently suffering 
acutely. I began trying to make her more 
comfortable, when she gasped, between groans, 
' What name ? ' ' Coutts,' I answered. ' Which 
Coutts ? ' ' My grandfather was a green grocer, 
on Second Street,' I shouted, and fled, sending 
a maid to her assistance." We all laughed. 

I went to the Browning Society, one night, 
and liked it, and joined it. As Miss Alden 
had said, sometimes you drew a blank, and 
sometimes you got an uncommonly good thing. 
The men and women were bright and interesting, 



70 NORTH OF MARKET STREET. . • 

and said witty things, on the spur of the 
moment, and read wise papers, and chaffed 
each other, and were as spontaneous and na- 
tural, and human, as though they lived some- 
where else. 

The next Summer Aunt Ellen invited Miss 
Alden to spend a couple of weeks with us at 
Lake Mohonk. We were much attracted by a 
young, distinguished-looking woman, who was 
there with her little girl and a nursery gov- 
erness. Her name was Mrs. Farquhar. " I 
knew her grandfather, well," said Aunt Ellen. 
" He was minister to France, some years ago. 
Your Uncle James and I have entertained him 
many a time." 

The next morning, as we were all seated on 
the piazza, with our books and work, the 



NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 7 1 

Duchess of St. Albans, from Philadelphia, 
who was near Mrs. Farquhar, turned to hei 
and said, in distinctly audible tones : " ]\Irs. 
Farquhar, who was your grandfather ?" ''I never 
had a grandfather, Duchess," said Mrs. Far- 
quhar, sweetly ; and she went on with her read- 
ing. The Duchess looked insulted and left 
the piazza. 

That night Mr. Maverick ran up from New 
York, with Lord Cloverleaf, for a few days. 
It so happened that Aunt Ellen and Helen 
and I had known him well in Engfland, and 
Mrs. Farquhar had been entertained by his 
mother when she was a bride. Aunt Ellen 
spoke to the latter, and made the necessary 
introductions, and we all spent a very pleasant 
evening together ; especially as it turned out 



72 NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 

that Miss Alden and Lord Cloverleaf had mu- 
tual friends. 

The next day the Duchess sidled up to 
Mrs. Farquhar, and said, in a giggling, girl- 
ish voice : " Oh, you dear, naughty, delightful 
creature ! What made yon say yesterday you 
had no grandfather ? You gave me such a 
turn." " I told you the exact truth, Duchess," 
said Mrs. Farquhar, with dignity ; "my grand- 
fathers both died before I was born." And 
she walked away. 

She said afterwards to Aunt Kllen, indig- 
nantly : " My dearest friend went to Philadel- 
phia to live, a few years ago. This woman 
had been treated with the greatest hospitality 
b}^ her parents, in Charleston, for the Duke's 
sake. You know what a fine man he was ? 



NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 73 

" Well, Mary, in her cosmopolitan ignorance, 
moved outside of the pale. The Duchess sent 
word to her, by a mutual friend, that she 
would be very glad to entertain her at lunch, 
any day, but that she, herself, could not call, 
since my friend lived North of Market Street." 

" Did your friend stay in Philadelphia ? " I 
asked. " Oh, no ! nice people can't be forever 
explaining themselves, and warding off blows. 
She moved away." 



74 NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 



Chapter VI. 

IN the third year of our residence in Philadel- 
phia, the Talbot-Shrewsbury s took a fur- 
nished house on Park Lane. It was tiny, 
and shabby outside, and a cozy and luxurious nest 
inside; and in relation to its position in " Para- 
dise," it was on the near right of the throne. 
Soon after the family was installed there, Nellie 
invited us to dinner; Helen was too busy to go, 
as usual, but I accepted, gladly. The Talbot- 
Shrewsburys were delightful people to visit, and 
the droll little boys endlessly interesting. 

I found the usual family party, with the ad- 
dition of Clarence Talbot-Shrewsbury. He was 



NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 75 

tlie exact opposite of his brother, small, dark, 
thin, with a big fierce nose, and the alert look 
of a capable business man, a man who cared 
much for business and for nothing else. 
He sat beside me at the table, and I soon 
found that we were all in the centre of a very 
dark and a very damp cloud. While Nellie 
was dressing the salad, I tried to talk to the 
brothers, but failed. Lionel seemed worried, 
and Clarence looked as though he was testing 
a new formula for the making of sulphuric 
acid. He listened coldly to m}^ remarks, but 
refused to look at me, and made his curt re- 
plies to a little boss on the end of an old- 
fashioned mantlepiece, opposite. B3" following 
his e3^e, I was enabled to locate my words in 
precisely the same spot, and so we got on 



76 NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 

witH less confusion than seemed at first pos- 
sible. The children chatted and asked ques- 
tions endlessly. They had quite a little holiday 
of naughtiness. 

It was always a picture to see Nellie dress 
salad ; the lettuce was allowed to smell an onion 
and digest a chive. The oil and vinegar, and 
pepper and salt were all so beautifully propor- 
tioned, and so gracefully distributed. But to- 
night she looked hot and nervous. She forgot 
the salt, put in too much pepper, and bungled 
over the vinegar ; the result was a little strang- 
ling. Clarence tasted a leaf and put down his 
fork with the air of a man who is angry and 
sins not, but prefers to put clamps on himself, 
for business reasons. Lionel and I ate ours, 
slowly, and with frequent and furtive sips of 



NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 77 

water in between. Ices were a diversion and 
coffee a boon, and when Nellie and the children 
and I left the men to their nuts and wine the 
drawing-room seemed like green fields beyond 
a swelling flood. 

"Did you ever know anything like the bungle 
I made of that salad?" said Nellie, sinking 
exhausted on a divan. " And Clarence is so 
particular. He is always telling about the 
salads at his club. They have a French chef" 

" What was the matter, Nellie ?" I asked. 
" Your salads are, usually, ' beyond the be3'ant,' 
but to-night there was just a little too much 
vinegar." 

Now Nellie is nothing if not frank. If she 
were staying at Windsor she would not hesitate 
to tell Queen Victoria that she thought her too 



78 NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 

dumpy. And if she were a visitor at Sandring- 
hani, she would suggest Banting to the Prince 
of Wales. So it all came out. 

" I'll tell you just what the matter is," said 
Nellie. " You know the Talbot-Shrewsbury s 
are a very stiff family, oh, stiffer than McCallum 
More, and Clarence is the stiffest of the lot; and 
he came to dinner, unexpectedly, and Lionel 
and I have been on pins and needles for fear 
he would find out that you lived on Grafton 
Street. If he should, there is nothing under 
the heavens would convince him that you are 
nice. You know what these Philadelphians are. 
And we are all so fond of you. And it is so 
eccentric and headstrong in you. Why, with 
your income, you might live at the Stratford, 
and keep a brougham ; and the coachman could 



NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 79 

drive Heleu to her — her studies, ever}' morning, 
and go for her again in the afternoon. 

" And while I think of it, you mustn't be 
offended if I don't ask you and Helen to meet 
anyone here. It wouldn't be pleasant. You 
would only be snubbed. I know it must seem 
barbarous to you. I thought so, too, when I 
first moved here. But you have to take things 
as you find them. You have to accept the 
standards of the people 3'ou live with, and here 
the standard is Market Street. You and Helen 
can come to our quiet Sunda}- dinners, and we 
shall enjoy each other, thoroughl}', and not be 
bothered with any of these horrid Philadelphia 
peculiarities." 

" Thank you," I said, amiably, and I made 
a kind excuse to leave, before the gentle Lionel 



8o NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 

and the fierce Clarence returned to the drawing- 
room. 

It was many months before I saw Nellie 
again, and then, for Aunt Ellen's sake, I went 
to a Sunday dinner, where there were no Phila- 
delphians, and there was no danger of my being 
snubbed, and the Talbot-Shrewsburys were as 
comfortable as usual, and the little boys as 
droll. 

After dinner, Nellie suggested our going to 
" All Souls," for afternoon service ; and after 
that, she asked me if I would mind calling at 
Clarence's door for the children. 

At Clarence's door, however, it was discov- 
ered, that they had gone to Clarence's mother- 
in-law's, half way down the block, and we fol- 
lowed them. There Nellie, on being pressed. 



NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 8 1 

entered, and I followed, meekly, as became my 
locality. The house had the usual shabby ex- 
terior of old Philadelphia houses, and inside it 
seemed the abode of refined people in rather 
straitened circumstances. Needless to say, the 
position of the house was just what was most 
becoming to the dignity of Clarence Talbot- 
Shrewsbury's wife's mother. 

There were two ladies in the drawing-room, 
Mrs. Plantagenet, and her daughter, Mrs. 
Tudor. The elder woman was tall, slim, and 
grey-haired, with a searching dark eye, and an 
expression cold and suspicious. The 3^ounger 
woman was short, and fat, and dark-haired, witli 
a dull blue eye, and an expression cold and 
suspicious. When I was presented to them 
they each lifted eyebrows, with a look that said : 



82 NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 

" We don't know who yon are. We don't want 
you. You are not welcome, but you may sit 
down." I sat down. The call lasted half an 
hour. I heard many things about many people, 
things I ought to have been glad to hear, for 
was I not listening to the Elect discussing the 
Klect ? But as I sat on the sofa, away from the 
group, I was as much of a spectator, as little a 
part of the setting, as though I had been one of 
an audience at private theatricals. 

When we arose to go, I bowed, and again two 
pairs of suspicious eyebrows were lifted, with an 
air that said : " We don't know who you are. 
We are glad you are going. Don't come again." 

" Well, Nellie," I said, when we reached the 
street, " what's the matter there ? do they know 
I live on Grafton Street ?" 



NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 83 

"Oh, dear, no!" said Nellie. "I shouldn't 
have dared to take you in, if they had known 
that. They are very distinguished people. 
They have lived in the same house, I can't tell 
you how many generations. That is their 
usual manner to strangers. They don't know 
who you are." 

" But I should think my being with you 
would have vouched for me." 

"My dear Jane," said Nellie, ''I am a New 
Yorker. Try as hard as I may, I can't quite 
conform to their standards, and they are always 
a little suspicious of me. If you had gone with 
Clarence, now, it would have been all right. 
He never makes a mistake, and you would, 
simply, have been charmed with them. Mrs. 
Plantagenet and her daughter are lovely." 



84 NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 

I said good-bye to Lionel and Nellie, that 
day, and kissed the two little Talbot-Shrews- 
burys, droll, delightful little things. I have 
not seen any of them since. 



NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 85 



Chapter VII. 

WITH Miss Alden's cheerful companion- 
ship, and some charitable work which 
she placed in my willing hands, — 
which she was obliged to forego, on account of 
a pressure of school duties, — with the Browning 
Society, and an occasional visit to one or two 
of the Clubs, and with frequent runs to New 
York, I managed to weather through my third 
year, very comfortably. 

The next summer, at Lake Minnewaska, in 
the warm darkness of a remote corner of the 
starlit porch. Aunt Ellen spoke to us gentl}^ 
and seriously, but not sadly, of the Inevitable. 



86 NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 

"I am getting to be a very old woman," she 
said, " and my time is short. My children must 
accustom themselves to the thought of parting, 
must console themselves with the blessedness 
of the sure hope of meeting." We kissed the 
dear hands, in the darkness, but dared not 
trust ourselves to speak. A world without 
Aunt Ellen would be a world without a sun. 

She then went on to unfold her plans. We 
had long suspected that Aunt Ellen's right 
hand had been very busy and her left hand very 
blind. Now w^e knew it. But spite of this, 
because of her simplicity of life, and because of 
the natural accumulation of great wealth, her 
fortune ran up into many millions. 

" I have settled en each of you two hundred 
thousand dollars," sh^^ said, "and you will have 



NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 87 

the old house on Stuyvesant Square. This, 
with what you already possess, will give you all 
the income we have ever used. x\nd I know 
my girls feel that they have had the best this 
world offers." We pressed her hands, in the 
darkness. 

" I have settled a hundred thousand on Nellie, 
and on each of her two children, and left 
legacies to old friends, and to the ' goodies,' who 
will, of course; be your special care." 

She then proceeded to sa}^ that the vast bulk 
of her fortune was left, in trust, to Helen and 
to me, to be used in ways she proceeded to ex- 
plain. " And," she added, joyously, " in another 
year, Helen, you will be free, and we can begin 
at once to plan. Perhaps I shall be spared to 
see the work well on its way. 



88 NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 

The fourth year of my stay in Philadelphia 
I spent, at Aunt Ellen's request, in studying 
what is called charitable work, — what she calls 
"our debts to the poor." 

I saw Hebrews, Ethical Culture people. 
Friends, Unitarians, Universalists, the various 
denominations, Episcopalians and Roman Cath- 
olics ; and people who took a vicious delight 
in calling themselves nothing, and in girding 
at others who were glad to be ranged in the 
various regiments, in the fight for Humanity ; 
but who were as much to be depended on, when 
the time came, for good service, as were those 
who were working under banners. 

The intimate knowledge of needs, the con- 
centration of energy, the enthusiasm for good, 
the patience, and the abiding sense of the 



NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 89 

workers, under whatever name, filled me with 
wonder and admiration. 

I found what I supposed to be the nearest 
to Aunt Ellen's idea in the plan of a Jewish 
Rabbi. When she heard it, she sent him a 
check for ten thousand dollars, for his own 
particular work, with a request that he would 
run over to New York and confer with her 
about hers. 

Her chief advisers were this Rabbi, the Rec- 
tor of St. George, and a Catholic priest, much 
venerated by the poor people of the slums of 
New York, and by every one else who knew him. 
These men were to be the Advisory Committee 
for Helen and me, when we should need one. 

The plan included a park, with spacious and 
lofty homes for the workingmen, a kindergarten, 



90 NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 

and manual-training schools for the children, 
a high and wholesome place of amusement, a 
library and reading room, a hospital, a conva- 
lescents' home, and one for the aged and infirm 
and disabled ; and last, but not least, big, big, big 
bath houses. And the charities which Aunt Bllen 
had already fostered were not forgotten. Helen 
asked to be allowed to look after her beloved 
College Settlements, and I had a pet or two. 
Aunt Ellen smiled and said, " After I do as I 
please, you are to do as you please ; there will 
be plenty for each." 

In Philadelphia, in the Debateable Land of 
want and wretchedness, where the rich and the 
poor meet together, and the Lord is the Maker 
of them all, I saw many gracious people, with 
large minds, with free hearts, with sweet and 



NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 9I 

natural and kindly ways — even with Historic 
names, even from the Sacred Precincts. 

A fiend is at mine elbow, and whispers, 
"Jane, or good Jane, or good Jane Van Rens- 
selaer ! how would it have been had you met 
these people in their own drawing-rooms ? " 

To which I answer, " Fiend, I don't know." 

In April, Helen received her parchment 
amid the applause of her many friends. I 
felt sorry to lose Miss Alden, but I meant to see 
much of her in the future, while life should last. 

When we were leaving Philadelphia, as the 
train rolled out of Broad Street Station, Dr. 
Van Rensselaer said regretfully, " I have fin- 
ished the four happiest years of ni}^ life." 

I quoted from Aunt Ellen, " Philadelphians 
are clannish, and hard to become acquainted 



92 NORTH OF MARKET STREET. 

with, but when you know them they are love- 
ly." 

Dear souls ! How you would have scintil- 
lated in the days of Methuselah ! After eight 
hundred years or so of acquaintance, how ador- 
able you must be ! But in this fin de Steele 
age, really, there isn't time to discover your 
worth. So sorry ! Good-bye ! 



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